The Kalahari San: The Exploitation on "Primitivity" and "Indigeneity"

The Kalahari San have been subjected to political and economic changes within the past century at the hands of outside forces and colonialism. The west has always narrated and historicized the San as tightly-knit egalitarian... [ view full abstract ]

The Kalahari San have been subjected to political and economic changes within the past century at the hands of outside forces and colonialism. The west has always narrated and historicized the San as tightly-knit egalitarian people whose sustenance relies upon hunting and gathering, and whose ‘natural’ disposition derives from the vast landscape they know so well to survive in. As a result, the San have been continuously vulnerable to change enforced by outside forces. The introduction of sedentary life, reserves, non-San farms and farmers, tourism, and foreign led development projects have displaced many San groups, causing many shifts within San communities and San social structure. As political and economic practices of the Kalahari San undergo pressures to either remain the same or change, social relationships today among the San are both a response against as well as a reflection of this continuity and change.